medicare under the guidelines of aarp with our tax dollars are now advertising to say not fix it. the way we can fix it is to control the cost. the way to control the cost is to have more individual participation. there's a lot of ways to do that. but you can't play the game and hide. medicare and social security and medicaid, if those aren't fixed, if we're not honest about how to fix them and the fact, that, yes, everybody in this country will have to participate in some discomfort, if we're going to get out of this hole. as long as we continue to lie to the american people that you can solve this problem without adjusting and working on those programs it is dishonest and beneath anybody in washington. >> senator stabenow, you heard it right there, medicare, medicaid, social security, all have to significant reform, can you accept that? >> george, there are three parts of the stool here to solve this problem. one, spending. we've already agreed to trillion dollars in spending reductions. two, medicare and entitlements. we have already agreed to over $700 billion in spending reductions o

now. $400 billion in unspecified medicare cuts. over the next ten years. and then, permanent authority to increase the debt limit the president wants that authority. they look at that 1.6 trillion in revenue and say it's twice as much you get from raising taxes on the wealthy and much more than democrats would ever accept in the senate. that's why they say this is not serious. >> but let me start with what you said, we're making the threat of default. we propose to take an idea that senator mcconnell proposed in the summer of 2011 and extend that. what that does, it lifts the cloud of default over the economy. the president has increased the debt limit. congress has a chance to express approval of that. it's a very smart way by the senator with impeccable credentials to lift this threat. >> you said that he never intended it to be permanent? >> but, again, it was a good idea then, it's a good idea going forward. it came from him. it wasn't our idea. that makes a lot of sense. what you said that wasn't quite right, what we laid out for them was, a detailed set of reforms in health progr

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